Optimization Using Replicators

Abstract

Replicator systems are among the simplest complex systems and can be considered to be at the foundation of many popularly used models ranging from theories of evolution and neurobiology to sociobiology and ecology. This paper presents the first successful application 2 of replicators to optimization problems. For a graph bipartitioning problem with 50,000 nodes and 300,000 edges, for instance, close to optimal solutions were obtained in a few hundred iterations. Replicators provide a potentially powerful new tool to solve other optimization problems as well. Keywords: Replicators, Lotka-Volterra systems, quadratic optimization, graph partitioning. 1 Corresponding Author 2 to the best of the authors' knowledge Optimization Using Replicators Abstract Replicator systems are among the simplest complex systems and can be considered to be at the foundation of many popularly used models ranging from theories of evolution and neurobiology to sociobiology and ecology. This paper presen...